vkjohnson Posted November 30, 2014 Share Posted November 30, 2014 I have had 8 triacs fail in 1 night. 8 out of 336 channels. 4 controllers affected, all PC versions and all 4 years or newer purchased soldered directly from LOR. All channels have between 400 and 800 mini-lights and are running the same sequences as last year. All ran fine yesterday. This failure rate just seems ridiculous to me. Maybe if I had 8 throughout the whole season, but if this continues I'm going to pull my hair out. Has anyone ever experienced something similar? Did you continue to get failures? Is this worth contacting LOR directly? I have fixed these before and am in the process (luckily I have spare triacs), but no way will I have time to keep this up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vkjohnson Posted November 30, 2014 Author Share Posted November 30, 2014 I may have not come to a complete conclusion yet, although I did find this useful after some searching... Thank you LOR for this bit... http://forums.lightorama.com/index.php?/topic/29821-traics-continue-to-fail-why/?p=275947 Since I have loads around 1-2 amps on these triacs that went bad, I'd have to assume a short or something like that, but I can't fathom that on 8 different strings. Also note that after checking on these, all of the controllers that went bad were purchased in the summer sale of 2011 (that year the summer sale shipped really late) Version 1.02 if I remember correctly. If anyone has something to add, please do. I'd like to figure out the cause of this so I can prevent it. 4 hours of taking boards apart is not something to look forward to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
uncledan Posted November 30, 2014 Share Posted November 30, 2014 I lost 12+ triacs last year on numerous newer PC controllers. Not 8 in one night though...As you saw in the link on your second post there was a bad batch of triacs. That's what I assumed my issue was last year since I replaced controllers with defective triacs with 8 year old 1602s with no more issues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vkjohnson Posted December 1, 2014 Author Share Posted December 1, 2014 I did read elsewhere that 2011 was the first year of Gen 3 and that was when a bad batch made it through. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JeffF Posted December 1, 2014 Share Posted December 1, 2014 I did lose 8 or so triacs last year on my newest controllers(from 2012 or 2011). I just moved those elements to spare channels on some older controllers and no more issues for the rest of 2013. Over the summer I replaced all the defective triacs and so far this year no more have died. This is our 7th year with LOR and those 8 triacs are the only ones we have had die. I too chalk it up to a bad batch(notice I didn't say *the* bad batch... I would imagine quality control is NOT a big priority with the manufacturer when they are pumping these things out so maybe someone sneezed when they shouldn't have or something...). At any rate, I now have about a dozen spare triacs and a bunch of MOC3023s "just in case". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LOR Staff Posted December 1, 2014 Share Posted December 1, 2014 It has been my experience that in general Optos (the MOC3023s) are super reliable. I can only think of one or two times anyone has actually had one fail. What many don't understand is that it only takes 1/2 of an AC cycle (1/120th of a second) to blow up a triac. That isn't even enough time to realize a short has happened. The short could be caused by anything - a little moisture. An errant strand of wire. A shunt on a mini light that is slow to burn off. An extension cord that is coiled up with another cord running through it acting like a transformer. Really just about anything can cause a short/load that is long enough to kill a triac yet not have any other symptom. That 1/120 of a second is long enough to kill the triac while simultaneously clearing the fault. 1/120 is not long enough to trip a breaker or blow a fuse. Mystery ensues. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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